This six-screen app (free, but nestled among apps to purchase on the Peekaboo! platform) offers toddlers chances to meet and count farm animals, swipe open digital “flaps,” connect dots, color and listen to a sweet-voiced child reader.
Photos of plush farmyard animals are placed against very simple cartoon backdrops and nod or pulse gently as banjos plunk in the background. They pose next to plastic buildings or other obstacles that swing up at a tap to reveal more livestock—or, beneath the last, a toy “Farmer John on his tractor!” The animals all moo, cluck or otherwise express themselves when touched (the tractor starts up for a moment, then dies); tapping any words in the accompanying rhymed text cues repeat pronunciations. Furthermore, a large icon on each screen opens a coloring page, a hide-and-seek game or some other activity, culminating at the end with a quiz (“Which animal says ‘moo’?”) followed by a camera feature for selfies. Any photos or colored pages are stored not in the tablet’s camera roll but within a protected “Family Area” on the app itself, where parents can register, create individual folders for different children and share via social media. A reworked and artfully extended version of the 2011 board book. (iPad toddler app. 6 mos.-2)
Pub Date: Nov. 19, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: FamLoop
Review Posted Online: Dec. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
Earnest and well meaning but not quite a touchdown.
In Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Hurts’ motivational picture book, a youngster rebounds from disappointment.
As Jalen heads off on his first day of school, he daydreams about joining the football team, but his friend Trey soon breaks the bad news. The garden club needed more space for vegetables, so the football field was used for planting. There will be no football this year. Jalen is despondent, but his teachers Mrs. Lee and Mr. Barry and bodega owner Mr. Muhammad offer guidance that spurs him and his friends into positive action. They work to flip a nearby empty lot into a football field, with Jalen echoing his mentors’ adages. Once the field is complete, Jalen feels a swell of pride in his and his friends’ work. While the idea of kids working together to effect change is a laudable one, the bland, wordy storytelling won’t inspire young people or hold their attention. Tired, cliched inspirational comments peppered throughout often slow down the narrative, and many adult readers will find the premise—a school dropping a high-interest sports program in favor of a community garden—wildly unrealistic. Though the illustrations are colorful, with a Disney Junior charm, strange stylistic choices, such as signs with odd combinations of scribbles instead of letters, give them an unpolished look. Like Hurts, Jalen is Black; his community is diverse.
Earnest and well meaning but not quite a touchdown. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: March 10, 2026
ISBN: 9798217040308
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Flamingo Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers.
The bestselling series (How to Catch an Elf, 2016, etc.) about capturing mythical creatures continues with a story about various ways to catch the Easter Bunny as it makes its annual deliveries.
The bunny narrates its own story in rhyming text, beginning with an introduction at its office in a manufacturing facility that creates Easter eggs and candy. The rabbit then abruptly takes off on its delivery route with a tiny basket of eggs strapped to its back, immediately encountering a trap with carrots and a box propped up with a stick. The narrative focuses on how the Easter Bunny avoids increasingly complex traps set up to catch him with no explanation as to who has set the traps or why. These traps include an underground tunnel, a fluorescent dance floor with a hidden pit of carrots, a robot bunny, pirates on an island, and a cannon that shoots candy fish, as well as some sort of locked, hazardous site with radiation danger. Readers of previous books in the series will understand the premise, but others will be confused by the rabbit’s frenetic escapades. Cartoon-style illustrations have a 1960s vibe, with a slightly scary, bow-tied bunny with chartreuse eyes and a glowing palette of neon shades that shout for attention.
This bunny escapes all the traps but fails to find a logical plot or an emotional connection with readers. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4926-3817-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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